In the linen closet

When I was a young girl, I loved to sit next to my grandmother and listen to her stories. It was on her lap that I learned to read, and first heard of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Lawrence Welk. She was a thoroughly modern Millie, and had a remote control--with a mute button!--in the 1970s. She had a disability that made walking difficult, so spent much of her time in bed or in a custom-made chair that made it easier for her to be comfortable. 

One of those mornings, she told me the story of how she was invited to christen a ship in Japan. She recounted how the Japanese didn't just have a bottle of champagne broken across the bow; they had developed a mechanism that included a silk cord that had to be cut across a block with a silver hatchet in one stroke. They provided her with a hatchet to practice, since it was purportedly bad if she failed to cut it in a single blow--sort of like birthday candles. She told of the day of the christening dawning very cold, how she was very nervous, and how it rained when she cut the cord--successfully.

Then she called to my grandfather Russell, asking him to bring her the hatchet to show me. He stepped over to the linen closet, of all places, and reached in and pulled out a beautiful presentation box, painstakingly inscribed with the date by a hand not used to the roman alphabet. Inside were nestled the hatchet, along with a section of the red and white silk cord and a cedar chopping block that showed a clean cut. 

Years later, we would find a folder of the official photographs, along with a VHS tape my uncle had made of the 5mm film that had been gifted to Jessie and Russell. It was a remarkable experience to see the event she had described that day (and many times later on as she slipped into the fog of dementia), and especially moving to see her alive and hear her voice. 

My eldest cousin James also enjoyed listening to the grandparent's stories, except he followed my grandfather around. Russell was a wiry, vital man who always seemed to be in motion--except when he sat down to watch golf. James was a budding journalist at the time, and in 1977, he sat down with our 82 year old grandfather and interviewed him about his extraordinary life, using the latest technology--audio cassette tapes. 

Shortly after my mother's death, I asked him if knew what had become of the tapes. He was in the midst of moving and preparing a book for publication (The Abolitionist's Journal) and told me he would keep an eye out for them. After the California storms of last month dropped a rather large tree on his home, he made a concerted effort to find them. Of course, it was his wife who located them--in the linen closet, of all places.

They are currently in the hands of my favorite digitizer. I'm hoping the result will contribute to these family history musings. 

The fabled hatchet in its presentation box